


Dinner Date

by Devereauxs_Disease



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Even eat that..., Hannibal would do anything for love, M/M, So he develops a plan, Which...is a problem, Will can't cook like Hannibal though, Will wants Hanners, crack and fluff, poor hannibal, seduction via dinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 15:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17604302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devereauxs_Disease/pseuds/Devereauxs_Disease
Summary: After the fall Will decides to seduce Hannibal with food. He practices and everything! So, why does it go so damn badly?





	Dinner Date

**Author's Note:**

> WOW! Cooking fic won by two votes! For all of you who voted for smut, that fic is written, and will appear in a few weeks. 
> 
> As for this story, I literally did this two weeks ago and just...I immediately knew I had to fic my stupidity.
> 
> Also, as always, everyone say _thank you_ Gwilbers for being the best beta ever!

          Will tossed some butter in the pan and bopped back to the fridge to look for the garlic. He was feeling confident and stopped by his phone to turn up Big Mama Thornton as he pulled out the rest of his ingredients. It was a simple recipe, but a good one. It didn’t take too much effort but had just enough smelly cheese to make it seem fancy.

          Hopefully, Hannibal would appreciate that.

          Since he’d dragged Hannibal from the ocean, the doctor had done most of the cooking. Even with his arm in a sling, Hannibal had braised beef and carved little asparagus garnishes like he’d been working with one arm his whole life. Will had wanted to help, but he also hadn’t wanted Hannibal’s critical eye on his work.

          So…he waited.

          Every time Hannibal left the house, Will would run to the kitchen. The empath had never much cared for fancy flavor profiles or ornate radishes before he’d met Hannibal. Why bother with them when heating a can of soup or microwaving a Hungry Man single serve would do? Even with Molly, he’d put more care into fixing food for the dogs than he ever had in preparing meals for his family. Guilt bubbled cold in his chest when he thought of how little effort he’d really put into that venture, and he hoped Molly had found someone who would offer her a little more…well, everything.

          Putting in work for Hannibal had been a months long endeavor. He’d sliced his fingers along with a shallot. He’d burned bechamel sauces over and over again, he had wilted then withered greens, and once, he set a roast on fire. All of it a spectacular failure, and all of it had to be cleaned up before Hannibal came home, including any lingering scents. Will had bleached the kitchen so many times it was a wonder he hadn’t dyed the blue backsplash white.

          But now, Will had a dish. He’d gotten the recipe from Gina down the road.

          “This is the dish that got Enrico to propose,” she told him with a wink. “And it’s so easy he’d probably take the ring back if he knew.”

          Will had like the sound of that. Easy was good. Easy probably meant he wouldn’t be desperately scraping clotted potato gunge off the ceiling like he had after what he’d labeled The VitaMix Incident. Easy also meant he could do a few trial runs and make absolutely sure that he’d gotten the flavors right before he served them to Hannibal.

          When he was alone, he could also admit to himself that he also liked the idea of a dish so good it would make Hannibal propose. It seemed silly to want marriage again. His first had been a sweet disaster, and he spent it knowing that his wife was at once too good for him and not what he really wanted at all. But now, every moonlit stroll by the Church of St. John the Baptist and each languid day letting the sun tan away their scars on Marina di Vietri had Will wondering if perhaps he was cut out for the husband life after all.

          He set out to prove it to himself, and to Hannibal, with a simple dinner – one that even he couldn’t screw up and had a history of earning proposals. Will would settle for a kiss, maybe some light humping on the kitchen floor. They could build from there.

          After five practice runs, Will was convinced he’d perfected the recipe. To finish off his plan, he sent Hannibal to pick up his fishing equipment, which…could have gone better.

          “Why didn’t you ask me to get it when I was in town this morning?” Hannibal had asked, eyes narrowing.

          “It wasn’t ready then, just got the call.”

          Hannibal tilted his head. “Your phone didn’t ring.”

          “It was on silent.”

          “Then how would you have-”

          “DO I EVER ASK ANYTHING OF YOU? JESUS COULD YOU JUST GO GET THE GODDAMN TACKLE?”

          Hannibal’s eyebrows raised, but he simply said, “Shall I pick up dinner?”

          Will, already feeling rather embarrassed that his grand seduction plan now involved screaming at his intended, slapped his hand on the counter. “NO!”

          “Very well,” Hannibal’s tone was calm as ever, but Will noted that the doctor scented the air and then backed out of the kitchen.

          “I don’t have encephalitis!” Will shouted at the closing door. Not quite the tone he wanted to set for an evening of romance, but Will had started with worse. Hell, as long as no one was bleeding out in the kitchen, they were probably on the right path.

          Trying to quell his nerves, Will thumbed at his phone until music pumped through the kitchen. He twirled as he added each new ingredient, gorgonzola and garlic melting into the cooked pasta. He tossed in some spinach and a few red pepper flakes. He grabbed the evaporated milk just in time to yell _Maybelline_ into it while Chuck Berry handled the guitar solo. Dumping the milk into the pot, Will covered the dish and left it to simmer. He couldn’t dress a table quite as well as Hannibal, but surely he could throw down a nice table cloth and light a few candles.

          Will had about 5 minutes until dinner was ready and 10 until Hannibal was back. He drummed his fingers on the counter. It wasn’t that he worried about Hannibal’s receptiveness to a romantic relationship, but for the first time in a very long time, Will wanted things to be perfect. When he proposed to Molly, it had been a haphazard stutter. When he kissed Alana it had been a fever driven impulse. With Hannibal, he wanted the doctor to know that he’d thought about it, he’d planned for him, that he’d made a real effort instead of falling off a cliff as he always seemed to.

          Will ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends. Getting tense would not help, maybe if he just shook some of the nerves out of himself? Grabbing a spoon Will flipped through his mix until he found a suitable song, and joined Ray Charles in his song.

          He hadn’t noticed the time until firm hands landed on his hips as Will attempted to moonwalk across the kitchen. He yelped, manfully, before turning to look at Hannibal, so close and smiling so wide.

          “Who is this woman, way over town, who’s so good to you?”

          “I, uh, early, that is…” Will sighed, helpless under the weight of that damn toothy smile. “Dinner?”

          “You cooked,” Hannibal breathed, his eyes nearly glowing in the kitchen lights. He released Will and the empath fought the urge to follow the doctor and fit those hands back to his hips. Hannibal walked into the dining room, no doubt surveying whether he needed to add a skull or antique silverware to the table.

          Will let him go, he had to plate the pasta.

          When the cover lifted off the dish, it looked…brown. Will frowned, it had never looked brown before. He sniffed at it squinted when he smelled something sweet. Shaking his head, he sprinkled more red pepper flakes into the dish and a few more crumbles of gorgonzola. He was about to taste the noodles and see if that fixed it when firm hands were back at his waist.

          “How may I help?” Hannibal’s breath stirred the hairs behind Will’s ear and he gripped the pan a little tighter to keep from shivering.

_Bend me over this stove_. Will shook his head, he could mention that after dinner. “Wine.”

          “Any particular bottle?”

          “You pick.” Hannibal smiled and gave Will a squeeze before leaning forward to smell the dish. The doctor’s face ticked through about seven different emotions in a second, Will thought he spotted surprise and hesitance, but Hannibal landed on fondness before departing for the wine fridge and selecting a pinot grigio.

          Will grabbed at the pasta with tongs and attempted the twirly plating technique that YouTube promised was _foolproof_. The brown sauce slopped at the side of the dish and Will sighed, he should have practiced plating too. With a firm nod of his head, Will threw some parsley sprigs on the plates and walked into the dinning room where Hannibal was pouring wine.

          “This seems like an excessive treat for my picking up your new tackle,” Hannibal said as he pulled out Will’s seat. Will noticed the doctor had moved his place from across the table to directly next to Hannibal. He smiled to himself as he sat, noting that Hannibal’s hands lingered on the chair just long enough to brush Will’s shoulders.

          “I’ve wanted to make you dinner for a while now.”

          Hannibal took his place beside Will, his thigh brushing against the empath. “Really? Then I shall savor it all the more.”

          “Yeah.” Will grabbed for his wine glass and took an anxious sip as he watched Hannibal take a bite. Again, the doctor’s face seemed to cycle through too many emotions to count. Will thought he saw surprise again and something a little sourer, but when the doctor swallowed, the smile was back and his eyes were soft.

          “Thank you, Will.”

          “Is it good?” Will felt his heart pick up in his chest.

          “It is unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. Where did you get the recipe?”

          Will grinned to himself and told Hannibal about Gina’s recipe. He watched as the doctor took more bites of his pasta and finally managed to twirl a few strands of linguine onto his own fork.

          Gorgonzola, garlic, red pepper…and caramel? Will gagged, the caramel flavor sticking to the roof of his mouth as he spat the noodles back onto the plate. He looked up at Hannibal with wide eyes. “Holy fuck what did I do? AND WHY DID YOU EAT IT?”

          Hannibal seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, genteelly raising the napkin from his lap and spitting the remnants of what must have been his fifth bite into the cloth. The doctor offered Will a small smile. “I must admit your trial runs were much better.”

          “My trial r-how long have you known?”

          Hannibal took a sip of wine, and if Will didn’t know any better he’d say the doctor was subtly gargling with it before swallowing. “I began to suspect you had an interest in cooking when I saw you scraping potato soup off the ceiling.”

          Will dropped his head into his hands.

          Hannibal leaned in, voice conspiratorial. “You know, the first time I tried to make an omelet-”

          “Let me guess, it won an award?”

          “I left the eggshells in.” Hannibal grinned when Will peeked through his fingers. “I was seven and already quite assured of my skills as a chef. I crunched them right into the butter and the eggs. But my mother ate every bite.”

          “She must have loved you very much.”

          Hannibal’s hand fell on Will’s thigh. “So it would seem.”

          Will felt a bit lost, but let his hand fall down to rest atop Hannibal’s. It felt good there, certain and solid. “It turned out perfectly every other time.”

          “I know,” Hannibal said sympathetically, softly rubbing Will’s thigh. “Why did you change the ingredients?”

          “I didn’t.”

          “Tell me, Will,” Hannibal’s head tilted. “You do know there’s a difference between condensed milk and evaporated milk, don’t you?”

          “Of course I do!”

          “So, if we go to the cabinet now, I’ll find a green tin of condensed milk instead of a red tin of evaporated milk?”

          Will faltered thinking back to his cooking…what color had the damn can been? “We have…both in that cabinet?”  

          “I was planning on treating you to some homemade caramels this weekend,” Hannibal lifted up the brown noodles and watched as a glob of sauce fell from them. “But it seems you’ve already made caramel for me.”

          Will pushed at the pasta, the sauce was gelling. “Oh god.”

          “Don’t worry yourself so much,” Hannibal pulled Will into a hug. The empath let himself sag against Hannibal’s chest, listening to the steady heartbeat beneath him. “This meal brought back fond memories of my childhood.”

          Will tilted his head up. “Of Murasaki?”

          Hannibal’s eyes were glittering with mirth when they met Will’s. “No, of starvation.”

          Will’s mouth dropped open, he could feel Hannibal’s laughter shaking him. Will pounded twice on Hannibal’s chest before deciding kissing him quiet would be more effective.

          Hannibal made a surprised noise before melting into Will’s mouth, sealing their lips together. Will decided when it was spread on Hannibal’s tongue caramel and gorgonzola didn’t taste so bad.

 

**Author's Note:**

> SO...the moral of the story here, people, is when your husband buys evaporated milk- CHECK THAT IT IS ACTUALLY EVAPORATED MILK. Don't just bop along to music and not look at what you're putting in the pan like an idiot. 
> 
> **Next Up:**  
>  This might be the crackiest crack that ever cracked...It's a Groundhog Day special, featuring Jack Crawford and a WHOLE BUNCH OF FIC TROPES.


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